Under the No Early Release Act, he must serve 85 percent of his prison term, 42 and a half years, before he’s eligible for parole. In imposing the sentence, Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. also gave Mertz credit for time already served — nearly 1,500 days he spent in jail before his trial.

His attorney, Bruce K. Warren, announced later in the day that he’d appeal the first-degree murder conviction.

Whipkey’s body was found May 26, 2002, just 53 yards from Mertz’s room in the Westwood Motor Lodge on Crown Point Road, West Deptford Township. Mertz lived there at the time of the murder.

He wasn’t arrested on the murder charge until December 2008, after authorities said they matched his DNA to that in semen found in Whipkey’s body, among other evidence. Mertz had provided a DNA sample as required after a drug conviction in 2005.

On Thursday, six Whipkey relatives addressed Marshall before he issued the sentence. Others had provided written statements.

In her own statement, McCool recalled her daughter’s brief life.

“For 15 years, it was just me and her. She was full of life, she was adventurous,” McCool continued. “She was a trusting person who tried to see the best in others.”

Whipkey would go on to have a daughter, Alyssa, who was 4 years old at the time of the murder, McCool noted. Later in her statement, she recalled the night she learned she had lost her daughter.

“Three officers came to my home to inform me my daughter’s body had been found in a wooded area,” she said.

“What kind of animal could do something like this, and why?

“My life ended as I knew it when she was murdered,” McCool sobbed. “It was like I was living a bad dream, but it wasn’t a dream at all.”

She went on to say she couldn’t sleep, eat or live the way she had before.

“The pain was unbearable,” she said. “I felt completely lost and helpless.”

Although some normalcy eventually returned, McCool added, the pain never really leaves.

“The sadness becomes a part of you,” she said. “Sadness has become a part of our family.”

McCool recalled replaying over and over the manner of Whipkey’s death. In addition to 63 knife wounds, she’d also been strangled and beaten, according to testimony during the trial.

“The details of her death are what we have to live with, and that will never change,” she said.

Despite the horror Whipkey must have faced, though, McCool maintained there was relief.

“She was not alone that night,” McCool said. “God was with her. He wrapped his loving arms around her and carried her home.”

Whipkey’s stepmother, Cathi Cooney, recalled in the victim a beautiful young woman about to embark on a career in the Air Force.

Cooney, like McCool, remembered chilling evidence brought to light at trial — cellphone messages from the night of her death that would become “the last time anyone would hear her voice.”

“The horror she suffered that night is our horror,” she said. “The victims of this crime are many — too many to count.”

Whipkey’s great-uncle, Joseph McNerney, attributed Mertz’s actions to “a lower power.” And regardless of what happens in court, he said, the true solutions come from a higher one.

“Nothing in your sentence can change the evil of what he did,” he told the judge. “It doesn’t matter whether he’s incarcerated or not.

“I believe in another dimension where these things are taken care of ... I think Jennifer is observing all this today.”

Adding that the tragedy and drawn-out legalities have been draining, McNerney said it has helped bring family members closer together.

The family also displayed a slide show of photos from Whipkey’s life.

Some captured the young mother reading to Alyssa, now in her teens. It was all shown to Laura Story’s “Blessings,” a prayer in song about realizing the presence of the Almighty even during intense suffering.

First Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Michael Curwin, who tried the case, urged Marshall to impose the maximum sentence — life in prison without parole.

Mertz’s attorney acknowledged the severity of the crime but asked the judge for a degree of leniency.

“There is no book that tells me as an attorney how to deal with a crime like this. There’s no one I can ask for advice,” Warren said. “What do you say at a sentencing for a crime like this? How do you convince the court to allow the defendant to redeem himself?”

Warren argued that Mertz had changed since that Memorial Day weekend a decade ago. He was, back then, addicted to crack cocaine, the attorney said.

As another mitigating factor, one that might bring a lighter sentence, Warren offered that his client has a 4-year-old son.

“Mr. Mertz is redeemable,” Warren contended. “The sentence should fit the crime ... But Mr. Mertz is not the person he was at age 24.”

Marshall rejected drug use as a mitigating factor, explaining that trial testimony didn’t show he was under the influence at the time of the killing. He added that even if he had been under the influence, that wouldn’t necessarily lessen Mertz’s culpability.

The judge also asserted there was no proof that incarceration would be any more of a hardship for him than it is for others imprisoned.

Mertz had no prior convictions for violent crimes. His 2005 drug possession conviction was the only previous criminal matter on his record. Mertz had also been found guilty of several disorderly persons offenses in New Jersey and Texas.

Marshall said he didn’t see cause to hand down the maximum sentence. The 50-year imprisonment falls between that and the minimum 30 years.

Outside the courtroom, Cooney and McCool said they were satisfied with the sentence.

“I actually wanted life in prison, but I’m happy with what he got,” said Cooney, adding the former alternative, death, is no longer an option in New Jersey.

“I’m happy with the sentence,” McCool said. “I don’t have to go to court every month and have to rehash everything. It does help to have the person who killed your daughter go to jail.

“It would have been better if he’d shown some remorse,” she added. “Now it’s just about getting to forgiveness. But God will get me there.”